When You Should Quit Your Goals: Refocusing Your Energy on New Things

There’s nothing wrong if you quit something – it’s actually a very necessary component to success.

This is especially true during early stages of your growth, when you are still trying to find yourself and what types of goals and passions you want to pursue in life.

We rarely know exactly what we want out of life, so the best course of action is often to pursue multiple interests and see what sticks with you and what doesn’t stick with you.

That’s why I recommend you dabble in everything that you’re mildly curious in. It could be playing sports, making music, acting, writing, or whatever. Experimenting with different hobbies and interests can often be like trying out new foods. Just try it out and get a taste of it before you decide if you like it.

Truth be told, I’ve quit a lot more things than I’ve stuck with. But sometimes it’s worth quitting that 99% of things you try just so you can find that 1% that really “clicks” with you.

Self improvement is a process of trial-and-error. You often won’t know where your strengths, interests, and passions lie until you’ve tried out a wide-range of activities.

So there’s nothing wrong with failure, or quitting, or moving on from any of your goals. It’s all a part of the process of self-discovery, self-improvement, and self-mastery.

But how do you know when it’s appropriate to keep pursuing a goal vs. quitting a goal? This article will cover key tips, advice, and suggestions to keep in mind when you find yourself at a crossroads.

When You Should Quit Your Goals

Here are healthy reasons, tips, and advice for why you should quit a current goal.

• Your values and priorities have changed. Our lives can change in many ways that can make quitting a goal a smart decision. First, your personality and interests often evolve over time – what interested you when you were younger may not be the same thing that interests you now. Second, life can throw us curveballs. Having kids, taking care of sick loved ones, or other pressing concerns can sometimes force us to reevaluate our top priorities in life. There’s nothing wrong with letting go of a dream if it means focusing more on what really matters in your life.
• You can’t see yourself doing it in the future. One of the most important aspects to self improvement is foresight, which is your ability to see into the future. Take a moment and imagine yourself pursuing this goal for the next 5, 10, or 20 years. Is it something you can imagine and see clearly? If not, that may mean this goal isn’t as special to you as you think it is. If you can’t see yourself doing something in the future, that’s a sign it may not be the best pursuit for you in the long-run.
• You want to redirect your energy and focus. When you quit a goal, that doesn’t mean you are quitting life in general. Think of “quitting” as just a redirecting of your energy and focus onto new and better things. The sunk cost fallacy is the faulty belief that we should keep investing into a bad decision simply because we’ve already invested a lot into it – I consider it one of the main cognitive biases that kills our success and productivity. Just because you invested a lot of time and energy into something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t redirect your future time and energy.
• You can still takeaway a lesson from your “failure.” While quitting can often feel like a big “failure,” you don’t have to think of it that way. Even if your main goal didn’t work out, you likely still learned a lot while pursuing it. At the very least, you learned that your goal doesn’t fit you as best as you thought it did. But there are likely other lessons you can takeaway from your quitting as well: knowledge you learned along the way, how to be more motivated and disciplined, or new skills you’ve improved upon. There’s always something you can takeaway from a “failure” that you can apply to a future goal; in this way, there is no such thing as failure – just different paths to get to where you want to go.
• You can always put a goal on the back-burner. Just because you quit a goal doesn’t mean you have to completely close that chapter in your life. Perhaps it’s best to just put that goal on the back-burner for now, and you can always revisit it when the time is right. I have many future goals that I’m not currently pursuing (screenwriting, stand-up comedy, making electronic music) because I’m busy with other things, but all of those goals are waiting for me when I find new opportunities to pursue them. Your quitting doesn’t have to be permanent, it can just be a temporary setback if you want it to be.

As you can see, to quit a goal isn’t the end of the world. And in fact, knowing when to quit something is often what separates successful people from unsuccessful people.

When you quit something, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve wasted your time and energy. It just means you found new and better opportunities that better serve your current values, priorities, and interests.

Are you currently pursuing a goal that no longer makes sense to you? Swallow your pride, close that chapter in your life, and get ready to start a new chapter tomorrow.

Enter your email to stay updated on new articles in self improvement: